Wednesday Wisdom

Who?

William of Ockham (Occam in old English) was a Franciscan theologian and philosopher who was born in 1285 in Ockham which is believed to now be Surrey England. As a Franciscan, he was schooled under the interpretations of St Francis of Assisi, where poverty, devotion, and logic were emphasized. He later attended Oxford University where he continued to pursue his passion for learning, especially on the subject of logic. Ockham was a Franciscan friar and a scholastic philosopher, and his work had a significant influence on Western thought, particularly in the realms of epistemology, metaphysics, and political theory. He engaged in debates on various theological and philosophical issues of his time, including the nature of universals, the relationship between faith and reason, and the authority of the church.

What?

Ockham moved to Avignon, France at the behest of the Pope to study Papal Bulls, which is a decree or edict by the Pope. During this period his writings straddled his love of logic and theology. His writings however came to conflict with the Papacy over the issue of Jesus and his disciples and whether they owned their property or renounced those rights as the Franciscans believed. This belief in poverty for the devoted further escalated with Pope John Paul XXII when Ockham also wrote about his political theories and the separation of church and state. Already in the crossfire of the Papacy, his stance on the limits of Papal power, led to his excommunication or ban from the church.

Ockham's ability to think logically and in the simplest terms led to the development of what is now known as the Occam’s Razor (shortcut). According to him, simplicity is more important than complexity: of two competing theories, the simpler should be preferred. Ockham's approach to epistemology emphasized skepticism or questioning and the limitations of human knowledge. He argued for a form of empiricism, asserting that knowledge comes primarily from sensory experience rather than abstract reasoning.

2024: Why should you care?

Heuristics are a general problem-solving technique that gives a shortcut to an answer. They provide a rule of thumb to find a correct, although not precise answer, but more importantly recognizes biases that can affect decision making or probabilities. Imagine someone believes that their hometown is safer than a city they've never visited. This belief is based solely on their familiarity with their hometown. Despite lacking any direct evidence or statistics about crime rates in either city, they instinctively assume that their hometown must be safer simply because they know it well. This is an example of the familiarity heuristic, where people rely on their familiarity with something to make judgments or decisions, even in the absence of concrete evidence. Another example would be the recency bias at play when someone witnesses news coverage of a plane crash. Despite knowing that flying is statistically safe, the vivid memory of the crash may disproportionately influence their perception of flying safety in the short term. This bias can lead individuals to overestimate the risk of flying due to the saliency of recent events, despite evidence suggesting otherwise. A Razor is a type of heuristic that advocates for selecting the simplest solution or explanation among competing hypotheses. There are many razors, like Hanlon’s which says don’t ascribe malice when its most likely ignorance or Hitchens which says to dismiss claims or assertions that lack evidence.

Ockham gave the first and arguably the most powerful razor, a problem-solving technique that was simple but eloquent. "Occam's Razor" was born out of his Franciscan principles of poverty or a simple life unencumbered by physical possessions and his love of logic. In a world of ever-increasing noise and complexity, using "Occam’s Razor" provides clarity. This is a bottom-up way to solve problems by identifying symptoms and systematically addressing each one. Why start with the most complex problems rather than singling out the easiest to define? Physicians love this approach and use this when encountering multiple symptoms to find the root cause of a disease. Scientists like Newton, Einstein, and Hawkings have all used "Occam Razor" in their problem-solving. Einstein used Occam Razor when developing his "theory of relativity" formulating " It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make irreducible basic elements as simple and few as possible without representation of a single datum of experience". Why is Occam Razor still relevant? Solving by identifying the simplest root cause can save time and money.

Thank you, William of Ockham for helping realize that sometimes less is more and simple is eloquent.

And now you know:

Thank you, Dad for the Gift of Curiosity

Philosophy is the art of thinking, the building block of progress that shapes critical thinking across economics, ethics, religion, and science. 

METAPHYSICS: Literally, the term metaphysics means ‘beyond the physical.’ Typically, this is the branch that most people think of when they picture philosophy. In metaphysics, the goal is to answer what and how questions in life. Who are we, and what are time and space?

LOGIC: The study of reasoning. Much like metaphysics, understanding logic helps to understand and appreciate how we perceive the rest of our world. More than that, it provides a foundation for which to build and interpret arguments and analyses. 

ETHICS: The study of morality, right and wrong, good and evil. Ethics tackles difficult conversations by adding weight to actions and decisions. Politics takes ethics to a larger scale, applying it to a group (or groups) of people. Political philosophers study political governments, laws, justice, authority, rights, liberty, ethics, and much more.

AESTHETICS: What is beautiful? Philosophers try to understand, qualify, and quantify what makes art what it is. Aesthetics also takes a deeper look at the artwork itself, trying to understand the meaning behind it, both art as a whole and art on an individual level. A question an aesthetics philosopher would seek to address is whether or not beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

EPISTEMOLOGY: This is the study and understanding of knowledge. The main question is how do we know? We can question the limitations of logic, how comprehension works, and the ability (or perception) to be certain.